Circle of Atonement: Head-Spinning

There's a lot of coincidence at work in the thriller Circle of Atonement. Teacher Nam Cheol-woong (Son Ho-joon) gets involved with a star pupil Lee Jang-hyun (Kim Yoo-jeong) who is the surviving daughter of Shin Ji-chul (Lim Hyung-joon), the man who years ago murdered his girlfriend Kang Yoo Shin (Seo Ye-ji) who -- in his mind at least -- resembles this new student. Furthermore, Jang-hyun is blamed for killing her own mother with a gun dropped by police officer Lee Sang-won (Sung Dong-il) who was the lead detective on the case involving Yoo Shin and has secretly adopted the basically orphaned Jang-hyun.

I can practically see co-writers/co-directors Lee Dong-ha and Park Eun-kyung's intricately layered corkboard of index cards labeled with characters and plotpoints as well as the web of strings that connects them together like a spider's web. Some of the notes feel sketchy. Would Cheol-woong would want to kill Jang-hyun as revenge? Would Sang-won be so glib about Cheol-woong's slit wrists? When Reporter (Jin Kyung) starts poking around, looking for answers, we've got the same questions and more. But she's got a serious task ahead of her if she wants to write the article documenting this whole chain of events which started with a poor father who can't afford diapers and leads to a double suicide with hydrochloric acid then a pair of handcuffs ripped apart through rage.

20th Century Girl: Adolescent Lessons in Love

There's love at first sight And then there's love at first sighting. Don't know the difference? 20th Century Girl is here to make it clear as one of its two besotted teen heroines, Yeon-du (Roh Yoon-seo), becomes thoroughly enamored of their new classmate Hyun-jin (Park Jung-woo) the moment she spots his silhouette in the doorway of her mother's clothing shop. Sometimes, the heart doesn't even need eye contact! Compare this irrational behavior to that of her best friend Bo-ra (Kim Yoo-jeong) who takes a little longer to warm up to his best friend Woon-ho (Byeon Woo-seok). With tearjerking results.

Because these two girls are destined to get these two boys mixed up. They both will fall hard for Woon-ho but with Yeon-du abroad for a heart operation and Bo-ra trailing the wrong guy unknowingly on her friend's behalf, plenty of seemingly innocent hijinks will tangle up Bang Woo-ri's YA yarn — gang fights and falling plums, first kisses and drunken confessions. But... since Bo-ra can't square her divided loyalties, you're not sure who will end up with whom. Or for how long. You see, the trouble with acting on your friend's behalf in high school, at least, is that your actions may be misattributed and misinterpreted. Especially when you're too embarassed to say how you really feel. Well, maybe not just in high school. In K-drama, too.

The 8th Night: The Week Before

You'd think a movie involving a battle between good and evil would have a series of skirmishes before the big confrontation but Kim Tae-hyung's The 8th Night isn't following that convention. Instead, we're told about a monster (blinded by Buddha, no less) who's hoping he can reunite his black eye and his red eye and thereafter wreak havoc on the universe. The planets have aligned apparently. The keeper of the black eye (I think) knows that some crazy scientist has unearthed the red one and is conducting seriously amoral experiments to reactivate it. Once that's done, that one eye has eight nights to jump from body to body (or socket to socket, to be more accurate) until it reaches its partner-in-crime to inhabit the body of a virgin (Kim Yoo-jeong). What other body would house it?

Not much resistance goes on among the various victims in this journey. Generally speaking, the possessed keeper-of-the-eye cracks their neck, breaks out in a smile, sniffs its prey, then transfers into the new host. Creepy as hell but not much conflict. In this horror flick, the tension comes from knowing that with each "jump," the world is that much closer to Armageddon. I wasn't overly concerned with why the bitter monk (Lee Sung-min) with the axe wasn't hacking at an earlier iteration of the bodysnatching demon anymore than I was with the skeptical police officer (Park Hae-joon) who pooh-poohed the occult theories of his staff. The foolish naivete of the accolyte (Nam Da-reum) definitely made me wonder if this movie would have a happy or sad ending but I was fine with whichever way it went. In short, no spoilers here.

Commitment: Boy Band Boy Is the Man

What's the most effective way for a K-pop singer to be taken seriously as a movie star? Follow the example set by Choi Seung-hyun, a.k.a. rapper T.O.P. from the Korean boy band Big Bang. Here, in director Park Hong-soo's espionage thriller Commitment, Choi has winningly taken on the role of Ri Myung-hoon, a North Korean assassin who's been so indoctrinated into the cause that he can barely register emotion on his face. From the outside at least, he's a killing machine. Bullied at high school? No reaction. Stabbed in the side? Not even a wince. Killing someone? Closed lips. At most, a glare. Admittedly, there's one scene in which Ri breaks down and cries -- his two sisters, one blood (Kim Yoo-jeong), one not (Han Ye-ri) -- have both been kidnapped, after all. But soon enough, this teen assassin is back to serving up stoic face. And you know what? It works.

Haven't we seen enough tongue-in-cheek James Bonds and Jason Bournes, enough smirking Bruce Willis anti-heroes and improbably cheerful Jackie Chan clowns. Choi's cold, merciless, unfeeling take on the spy abroad gives more by giving us so much less. It also makes the fights scenes -- of which there are many -- more intense. When the good guy doesn't have time to weak or make a wisecrack, you know that the martial arts action is taking his utmost attention. It's all about your level of commitment.

But then the South Koreans have always taken the North Koreans seriously, whether it's as estranged friends (J.S.A.: Joint Security Area) or respectable foes (The Berlin Files). Only the Americans have insisted that the North Koreans were bumbling idiots, most notably in the Seth Rogen/James Franco misfire of a frat boy comedy, The Interview. And we saw where that arrogance landed them. North Korea may be off the grid (and even off its rocker) but that doesn't mean they're incapable or incompetent or impotent. And now Hollywood knows that too. Might I recommend a few documentaries?

Hidden Floor: Welcome to Your New Home... Time to Meet the Dead Neighbors!

Hmm. Let's see. Daughter Joo-hee (Kim Yoo-jeong) has developed a rash and been caught stabbing her doll with a discarded syringe. Not good. Mother Min-young (Kim Seo-hyeong) is an overworked architect hallucinating her new apartment building as a shabby domicile ready for the wrecking ball. Not good either. What's going on here? It's Kwon Il-soon's Hidden Floor, a pretty good fright flick that's part of 4 Horror Tales, a quartet of low-budget scary movies circa 2006 -- all but one written by Yoo Il-han. Yoo definitely has a classic formula at work here: A horrible crime (in this case the murder of a stubborn tenant and her son) must be uncovered by the living if the latter wishes to escape becoming one of the bitter dead's casaulties. Not that anyone will be believe her! I mean, ghosts... Really? Who believes in such things! You must be joking!!! Equally laughable are many of the performances: Like most B-movies, the exaggerated performances in Hidden Floor underscore how flat the other ones are. The exception? Kim Yoo-jeong. As the troubled pre-schooler who creeps out her babysitter, Kim feels vulnerable and menacing at the same time. You know she knows something about that hidden floor but you don't know whether that's a help or a hindrance to her mom.

The Chaser: The Kid Stays in the Crime Picture

The reveal and the capture of the serial killer come so soon in The Chaser that you might think, there's no likelihood of unrelenting tension in the hours ahead. Well, you're wrong! Director Na Hong-in and fellow screenwriters Hong Won-chan and Lee Shinho have made something more suspenseful than a standard whodunit; the mystery here isn't who did it, it's whether he'll get away with it despite his confession. What "it" is in this case is the attempted murder of a call girl (Seo Yeong-hie) whose morally compromised pimp (Kim Yun-seok) is undergoing a seismic shift inside as he searches for the lair of her last customer, a psychopath (Ha Jung-woo) held in detention by the cops. It's a wonderfully messy story with subplots involving police brutality, embezzlement, sex trafficking, auto insurance, church finances, and even a mayor who's been hit in the face with human feces. But aside from one glitch near the end in which a delightfully tough lady dick (Park Hyo-ju) inexplicably lets the murderer get away, the twists and turns of The Chaser keep you on your toes. Factor in that this is Na's first feature and an amazing performance by Kim Yoo-jeong as the prostitue's kid, and this movie is a super-impressive addition to Korean noir.